The Pre-Congressional Campaign Bob Barr Interview

Bob Barr is running in the Republican Primary for U.S. Congress in Georgia's 11th Congressional District.  Below is a transcript of an interview Proof Negative and I did with Barr on August 7, 2012, on The Proof Negative Show at FreedomizerRadio.com. The interview covers several topics: Barr's endorsement of Mitt Romney in the Republican presidential primary in 2012, the trouble with 3rd Party political campaigns generally and Gary Johnson's campaign as the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate in specific, and some other ancillary issues like Iran, UN Arms Trade Treaty, the Patriot Act, the NDAA, and domestic drone use. You can learn more about Barr's Congressional run here. 

Some may look at Barr's run for president in 2008 under the Libertarian Party's banner and presume Barr must be 'Liberty'. This interview will likely shock those people. Those who've been paying attention, however, will not be surprised when Barr touts people like Paul Ryan, Mitch Daniels and Rob Portman as possible VP nominees, or when Barr explains why he favors Iran sanctions.

Barr does manage to propose some big ideas about suing the TSA to disclose some of its operations and protecting habeas corpus by ending some FISA court abuses. Where I think Barr fails is in his belief that regular Republican Party Establishment insiders have the political will to defend civil liberties. Most don't.

The Proof Negative Show, even though it's a news show, is more hyperbolic than my old radio show. I hope no one faults Barr for going along with Proof's more conspiratorial line of questioning. I thought Barr handled it professionally. I also thought Barr made a salient point about the purpose of political parties: to win elections and change policies, not just debate.

It became obvious to me while transcribing this year-old interview with Barr that even long-serving political leaders don't understand how to answer questions to appeal to a growing base of liberty-minded people. If you plan to have a future career in politics you need to understand what the liberty-minded expect to hear you say. If you don't know what that is, you will struggle. If you need help because, for reasons of principle, you truly want to attract that demographic, I am willing to help you.

BOB BARR INTERVIEW:

[00:21:25]Proof Negative [Proof]: And of course, as everybody knows, he was the 2008 Libertarian Party candidate for president, former federal prosecutor, he spent a lot of time at the House of Representatives in Georgia... well, Bob Barr, it's a pleasure to meet you.

[00:21:40] Bob Barr [BB]: It's a pleasure being with you. I'm sorry I had a little bit of trouble calling in there, but good to be with you and your listeners.

Proof: You made it. You made it.

BB: Yep.

Proof: So I wanted to ask you here, first off, I wanted to get your opinion of the UN small arms treaty, because I know that you, you serve on the board for the NRA, and I just feel as though part of what stalled the UN small arms treaty was that they don't want states to decide that their rights supersede the United Nations'.

[00:22:12]BB: The small arms treaty, or as its officially known the ATT, the Arms Trade Treaty, is something that Americans should never accept and should be very, very wary of whatever they call it because it would, as you've indicated, it would in very large measure deal not so much with international transfers of illicit firearms, which is what they advertise as the primary purpose of it, but it would lead to various registries and restrictions on internal, that is domestic, transfers and registration of firearms. We were lucky that we sort of dodged the bullet so to speak last month when they could not reach agreement, but the UN never gives up on these sorts of things, and they will keep trying and trying and trying to get it through. So it will come up again as soon, perhaps, as the general assembly meeting September in New York.

Proof: Right. So let me ask you, Bob, is the goal to get... obviously the goal is to disarm all American citizens, but is this an incremental process or is it just one day we're gun owners, the second day it doesn't matter what kind of gun you own it's going to be illegal?

[00:23:37]BB: No. They understand the realities of the world the Chuck Schumers and the Carolyn McCarthies and the other... Diane Feinsteins in the Senate and the U.S. Congress the same way they understand if they went out and they said, "OK, we're going to ban firearms or ban ammunition," they know that they would lose. They've learned over the years that the best way to do is to do it very carefully, very incrementally, and couch what you're doing not in terms of gun ban or gun control or ammunition control but something very different. 

They seized, as you'll recall 12 years ago, on this notion of assault weapons, so-called assault weapons. They'll use terms like that and what the UN uses is the term the illicit trafficking in firearms, the illicit international trafficking in firearms. But of course they know and many Americans do not realize that in order to control the illicit trafficking in firearms, which, in my view, is not the job of the UN in the first place. In order to do that you have to necessarily set up some system of domestic, national registration. They will do it very carefully, incrementally.

Proof: All right now, Valerie, I know you were screening a call a second ago, so we were discussing the small arms treaty just to keep you up to date. [silence] Oh, I thought you were here. Ok.

Valerie Sargent Martin [VSM]: I'm sorry about that, Proof.

Proof: There you are.

VSM: The switchboard's slow tonight, yeah. Thank you, Bob Barr, for joining us tonight. I really appreciate that. Exciting to have you on the show. You've been on a lot of important projects both as a Republican and as a Libertarian. I wanted to kind of get your thoughts on the current presidential race and maybe have you handicap it for us and tell us what you think about what you've seen so far in the election cycle.

[00:25:49]BB: I'd be glad to but I'd also be glad to hear what you and your listeners think about it. I mean, you're certainly in touch with many, many thousands of listeners and people across the country.

My view is that ultimately on Election Day Obama will lose very decisively. I don't think that the recent polls that indicate that the election is very close, sort of going back and forth by a couple of percentage points, to me that doesn't mean anything because the vast majority of Americans, contrary to those of us on this call and your listeners who pay attention all the time to these things, the vast majority of Americans don't. And they won't focus on the election truly until the last few or several weeks before the November elections. So these early polls don't mean anything.

But the way I look at it President Obama… he, he will keep the core liberal democrat vote. The problem is I don't think he will excite his base and I don't think that he will gain the independent vote that he gained last time. The big question mark is to what extent will Romney be able to pick up that independent vote. Romney does not so far indicate or illustrate an ability to excite the independents, but when push comes to shove in the fall I think the majority of the voting public will recognize that this president has failed utterly to fulfill his promises that he made four years ago, that he has not done what he says he would do, and at least be willing to give Romney a chance. So I think Romney will win almost despite himself.

Proof: Right. So let me ask you then, do you feel as though the Romney vote is more of an anti-Obama vote, or is this a pro-Romney vote?

BB: I think it's a little bit of both, but probably more an anti-Obama vote than anything else because this President has done such a miserable job following through on his promises. Now in many respects I'm certainly glad he hasn't followed through on his promises because his promises are all Big Government. But for his base, for the Democrats out there, they are very disappointed and that will show up on election day with him.

Proof: And what do you think is a good, attainable goal for your 'brethren in crime' there? Well, maybe not 'crime,' but anyway, Libertarian [Party presidential nominee] Gary Johnson. What would be a good goal for him?

[00:28:40]BB: I like Gary very much. I first met Gary back in the mid-1990s when I first served in the Congress. We were at that time on different sides of the drug issue, but I always enjoyed debating him, I enjoyed talking with him, he's a very decent human being, he knows what he's talking about, he marshals the facts, he's a very, very solid candidate. And Judge Gray, who is his running mate, is as well. The Libertarians have a very solid ticket this time in Johnson/Gray.

The problem of course, the primary problem, remains for Gary and Judge Johnson [sic] same as for myself and Wayne Allen Root four years ago is money and organization. It is extremely difficult to buck the tide the way the laws nationally and the various states have been set up that make it much, much easier for the Democrats and the Republicans to organize themselves and raise money than for Libertarians. The real problem that Gary will face is simply having the resources to get his message out. But I think he'll run a very solid race. It will be very difficult to get into the debates because they simply, 'they' being the two major parties and the media, they like to keep it an exclusive club with just the two parties. Unfortunately I don't think he'll get into the debates which would really make for an interesting race.

VSM: Yeah. Can we talk about that for just a minute? Because supposedly if Gary polls 15% as the Libertarian candidate, or third party candidate, then the two major parties are supposed to be willing to participate in major national debates. It seems like Rasmussen and some of the other polling companies refuse to include Gary in their polling questions, so it's not really possible for him to get that 15%. What do you think about that?

[00:30:57]BB: It's very unfortunately and it's extremely unfair and the American people ought to demand that if they're going to set an arbitrary figure like 15%, which I think is unrealistically high given the lock on electoral politics that the Democrats and the Republicans have, but whatever that number is it needs to be a number that can be arrived at fairly and it's not.

The two major parties and the media basically decide who they're going to poll, when they're going to poll them, so they don't include Bob Barr, or, in this election cycle, Gary Johnson, and many of the polling questions so of course they're not going to… he's not going to poll well enough. It's something the America people ought not to stand for.

Proof: Right. And I'm sure you ran into that buzz saw yourself four years ago. Were you close to getting into any of those debates on TV?

[00:32:07]BB: No. We really weren't. Early on in the '08 campaign, shortly after the Libertarian National Convention -- which four years ago was held in Denver -- some polls indicated that we were doing 10, I think maybe even 12% in a couple of states, but we simply didn't have the financial horsepower to sustain that. I hope that Gary will have better resources so that maybe he can. But here again the only person in recent decades that has been able to meet the criteria that is established by the two major parties, and that is this arbitrary 15% polling, was Ross Perot and that was due largely to the fact that he had a large amount of his personal wealth that he was willing to put into that race. I certainly don't have that, and did not have that wealth, and Gary doesn't either. So, you know, third parties really operate at a distinct disadvantage in terms of both money, and the way the system is gamed against any third party.

VSM: So, Bob, with that in mind, is that your pragmatism about his chances? Is that why you didn't come out and endorse Gary and instead chose to endorse Mitt Romney?


[00:33:47] BB: I don't…it really wasn't that. Of course at the time I endorsed Mitt Romney several months ago Gary was not the [Libertarian Party] nominee. My primary goal this go around is to defeat Barack Obama. I think this man, if he is re-elected to a second term, will do such significant and perhaps permanent damage to the structure of this country, the infrastructure of this country, the political infrastructure, that we simply have to do everything we can to defeat him. And that was my thinking in coming out in support of Mitt Romney.

Mitt Romney to me is far from the perfect candidate. I think a lot of Republicans and independents feel that same way, but I think they also realize that now that we have seen what this man has done and wants to do to this country after having gone through four years of the Obama administration and knowing that he would be far worse unfettered by trying to win re-election this year. That to me supersedes anything else, even how I might feel about Gary Johnson personally, and I like him very, very much.

VSM: So what do you say to people who say there is no difference between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, that they're both cut from the same Big Government cloth? I mean, after all, Mitt Romney was the architect of Obamacare, and a lot of the policies that Mitt Romney put into place in Massachusetts as governor mirror several of those that Obama has wanted to promote at the federal level.

[00:35:40] BB: As I say, to me, Mitt Romney is far from the perfect candidate. He, in many respects, typifies the lack of a deep, substantial difference between the two parties. Both parties, both, the two major parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, favor a strong federal government.

But this go around, again, with Obama very clearly being in support of a massive, a truly massive increase in government involvement in the economy, not just in healthcare, but we saw it through the automobile, auto industry bailout and so forth, and so-called stimulus package. There is nothing, no part of the economy, or no part of our lives, that this particular president does not want to regulate and regulate heavily. That being the case - and he is really pushing the envelope of government control and government taking away freedom - that even though Romney is indeed in many respects a typical Republican, that is, they do like government for a lot of purposes that we as libertarian-leaning Americans don't want, he still is much, much better than the alternative in this particular instance.

In some respects, yes, the two parties still are cut from the same cloth, although in this instance Obama is so far to the left that there are indeed some very significant differences in tax policy, healthcare policy, between Romney and Obama that it does make it, I think, appropriate to support Romney over Obama.

Proof: I have a question here regarding the GOP. Valerie and I were discussing earlier how these states have their delegate counts, then they see that someone that they don't like wins the delegate count, they just decide to scrap everybody and then they choose their own people. As a federal prosecutor, I'm wondering how legal that is, that they can just choose people without a vote.

[00:38:12] BB: I've seen it over and over again here in my own state of Georgia. At the state level and at the [congressional] district level the same thing happens. It really isn't so much a legal question because the political parties -- and I don't have any problem with political parties running their internal structure pretty much the way they see fit as long as they don't discriminate based on gender or race, for example, which are -- not gender, but race is a constitutionally protected basis for non-discrimination. So as long as they don't violate the law or violate the case law based on the Constitution, the 14th Amendment, for example, or the 16th Amendment, for example, I think political parties ought to be pretty much free to decide what they want to do. And the courts have pretty much upheld that.

What we really need to do as Americans is to try and open up the political system so we get away from this notion that two and only two political parties represent, and are the only way that Americans can represent their views politically. I really favor opening up the political system. I tried four years ago and Gary is working on that this time, but it's very difficult institutionally, but I do think we ought to keep trying.

VSM: What are some of the things we could do possibly to correct this? I think it's a broken system, personally. I mean, you're right. I agree with you that it's very heavy handed either from the Republican Party side or the Democrat Party side. It's very difficult for any kind of independent person to get involved in the process. What could we do to correct that?

[00:40:16] BB: I think we ought to… Americans ought to be much more open to support a legitimate third party. I don't favor going to a European system where you have virtually unlimited political parties. That leads to great uncertainty and constant change. But I do think that Americans ought to do a better job and a more discerning job of identifying a third party that they can support.

The parties themselves need to do a better job, including the Libertarian Party, of presenting themselves to the American people. They need to recognize that certain issues can appeal, have appeal and relevance to the average voter and other issues don't. You don't have to give up your philosophical support for those other issues -- whether it's the drug issue, for example -- but you have to recognize that the average voter out there -- and it's the average voter that decides these elections -- is concerned, not about the drug issue, they're concerned about freedom of education. They're concerned about government regulation. They're concerned about taxes. And the Libertarian Party, for example, and some of the other third parties, could do much better, I think, in terms of presenting themselves to the average voter with issues that are relevant and have meaning to the average voter.

They also need to organize themselves better and present better candidates. As I would tell Libertarian groups a few years ago, you need to support candidates and identify candidates that you would not be embarrassed to bring home to meet your parents, because those are the candidates that appeal to the voters out there, not candidates that dress up like the Statue of Liberty or something.

VSM: So these third parties, their main problem is they don't… they focus on fringe issues and the candidates they choose to run for these offices are not appropriate candidates.

[00:42:41] BB: Not in every instance, certainly, but I think the parties… if the Libertarian Party, to use an example, is going to continue to call itself the Libertarian Party with an emphasis on the word 'Party,' then it has an absolute obligation to behave as a political party and not as a debating society. As a political party your goal is to achieve political ends, that is, to get votes and change policies. That means you have to organize yourself, you have to raise money, and you have to develop candidates who appeal to mainstream voters out there, and to present issues to those voters that the voters can relate to.

VSM: Hey, Proof. You still there?

BB: I'm still here.

VSM: [Laughter] Ok, Bob. With that in mind, I wanted to say why did you decide that you believed you were more aligned with the Libertarian Party? You were a pretty die-hard Conservative Republican back in the 90s. What happened that changed your point of view enough that you felt that you needed to switch to a different party?

[00:43:58] BB: Back in 2005-2006,which led to my switch at the time, it was the record of the Bush Administration on civil liberties. For a president of the United States and his Attorney General in the latter part of the Bush second term, Alberto Gonzales, to take the position that the American government could spy on Americans without any particular reason to do so, that they could ignore and violate the laws on surveillance and torture, and that they did not have to abide by the centuries old principle of habeas corpus -- that they could not detain a person without a good reason to do so --for a political party, a president of a political party to take the position that the government could do those things, to me, struck at the core of what this country stood for and on which we were founded. So those issues were much more important to me even than the tremendous spending, the flagrant spending policies of the Bush Administration.

VSM: Right, but Mitt Romney is not very good on any of those issues either. I mean, specifically with the NDAA and the Patriot Act he didn't really come out strongly against them. He actually supports the Patriot Act. How do you justify that if your primary reason for leaving the party was to go where civil liberties were more protected? How do you align that belief with getting behind Mitt Romney?

[00:45:45] BB: Well, with the Bush Administration we know what they did. They imprisoned Americans in violation of habeas corpus. The Bush Administration supported the amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and even went beyond that and surveiled Americans in violation of the law. If in fact Governor Romney wins this election and he does those same things, then shame on us. I hope that he won't, and I do hope that there will be at least some pullback from that. I'm certainly going to work diligently to see if we can bring back, reign in some of the excesses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act amendments and the Patriot Act. Unfortunately neither of those two major party candidates are particularly good on those issues.

With Obama we have a president who as a candidate said he would be against these things and then went back on his word so we know where he stands. With Romney you're absolutely correct. He is not where I would like to see him be on these civil liberties issues, but hopefully we'll have at least something to work with him, but if not, then we'll have to seek a change four years from now.

Proof: See and that's my biggest worry, is that. Just like we expect Barry to be a one-termer, my worry is that Hillary Clinton runs in 2016 then we get the clean-up of whatever the current President right now couldn't finish. Because if Hillary runs by name recognition, with the lack of enthusiasm with Romney, he's going to have to do, he's going to have to grow by leaps and bounds in order to get a second term.

[00:47:47] BB: Well I worry a great deal similarly about Hillary Clinton and I think that she is positioning herself to run regardless of who runs this time. If Romney wins I can see her making a play as a Democratic candidate to run against him in four years. If Obama wins then he of course will be term limited and that will… she will be running for an open seat. That's a bridge we're going to have to cross regardless.

Of course a lot of things can change between now and four years from now. We do have a number of, I think, very good, young up-and-comers out there, particularly on the Republican side. I don't see any particularly good ones on the Democratic side.

I guess maybe in a sense I've become a little bit more practical. I think there will be so much damage done over the next four years if President Obama wins that the goal absolutely has to be ensuring that he does not get a second term, and we'll address problems with whoever does get in four years from now, we'll address those at that time. I just cannot see this country surviving in terms of our fundamental freedoms with another four years of this president.

Proof: Right. At best, I see if Barry gets another term, at best I see we become Venezuela.

[00:49:21] BB: Well, it has some seeds to that, no doubt about it.

VSM: Proof tends to be at the extreme on the beliefs sometimes, and that's fine.

Proof: I wouldn't consider myself an extremist or anything. I just think that I, hey, if I see a spade I'm going to call it a spade, and I see huge socialism happening in his second term because he has nobody to answer to. If he tried anymore of his stuff now, he could be voted out.

VSM: Well, you know...

BB: Absolutely...I'm sorry...

VSM: No. Go ahead.

[00:50:01] BB: I think going back to your very first question about the Arms Trade Treaty, I think had it not been for the fact that this is an election year and right before an election, I think this administration would've pushed very hard to have the UN adopt the ATT, the Arms Trade Treaty. The only reason I think they did not push very hard for it, because that's certainly where their heart and soul is, is because he wants to win re-election.

If in fact he were to attain that goal there's, as you say, nothing stopping him from pushing that kind of agenda over the next four years.

Proof: Which is really [inaudible]for me because we pretty much see at any given point we can have World War III on our hands. If we, the United States… if Obama gets desperate and decides to bomb Iran and China and Russia both said, "You bomb Iran we're coming right at you," what would be a better time than to take everyone in the United States' guns away? It would be like Iran, China, Russia, and the United States against the United States.

[00:51:16] BB: I worry a great deal about that as well. And not only in the Middle East, but with Iran I think it would be a disastrous move to take military action against Iran like that. I don't think it's necessary. I think there are steps that can be taken far short of military action with regard to Iran to begin turning that situation around.

I also believe -- and I've lived over in Iran. I graduated from high school in Tehran, many years ago certainly, but the Iranian people are by and large are very pro-Western. It is a young population. It is a highly educated population. It is a very large country. If we were to play our cards right and have somebody in the White House that truly understands what's going on over there and support the young people over there -- I think it's important to support the economic sanctions. I think it's important to support very quietly some of the opposition groups -- I think that we can turn that situation around. But I worry about the hawks in Washington looking to gain politically by taking some sort of military action, which I think would be extremely costly and destabilizing.

Proof: One of the reasons why I'm not voting for Romney is I did see him on Meet the Press when he was...he did mention that the president now has the power to call a war or go through the United Nations, not by going through Congress. You could Executive Order something now. He said one of the first things he's going to do is go into Iran. That scares me.

[00:53:12] BB: It would me also. The only good and the bad news on that is that he's sort of been on both sides of that, which is not good, but I've also heard him make some more tempered statements. It's a real problem area. No doubt about it.

Proof: Right. I'm guessing by some of the questions I'm throwing at you, you might guess that I do side with Ron Paul on many issues. Is there anything that Ron Paul can do at this point to even become a speaker at the GOP? It seems like they want no part of him.

[00:53:54] BB: I would be very surprised if they do give him any sort of prominence there. I do hope that some of the other younger Republicans, like Paul Ryan for example, are featured prominently. I mean in terms of Romney choosing a running mate I would like very much to see him choose a Paul Ryan, somebody that has a very solid foundation in truly limited, conservative government fiscal policy. I'd much prefer to see that than some of the other names that have been bandied about.

VSM: Yeah. Who...

Proof: Right... Go ahead.

VSM: Well, I was just going to ask Congressman Barr who some of the other young up-and-comers that he might suggest as possible VP candidates.

[00:54:55] BB: Paul Ryan would be near the top of my list. I like Mitch Daniel very much, although he's taken himself out of the running.

VSM: Right.

BB: I don't know, personally I don't know Tim Pawlenty, and I do think that he's got some solid economic credentials, fiscal policy credentials. I think that somebody like a Bob McDonnell, even though I have some very serious disagreements with him on some of his civil liberties policy statements, for example he made a statement that I think he regrets in support of use of drones domestically by law enforcement. I do think that his expertise in sound, conservative fiscal policies would make him a relatively good choice.

Even though Marco Rubio down in Florida garners a lot of support, generally, among conservatives, I just think he's too young, too untested to step into that job. Rob Portman, even though he's probably not the most conservative of the field of potential vice presidential nominees, I do think he has a solid foundation, I think he has, here again, some necessary experience in getting things done. I do think that he is a sound fiscal conservative, so I certainly would have no problem with him serving in that capacity either.

VSM: I was just going to mention, I'm actually an alternate representing the 8th Congressional District here in Georgia to the Republican National Convention in Tampa in two weeks. 

BB: Good.

VSM: Well, it's been a very hard-fought process for me...

BB: I know.

VSM:...because I am, I'm more of the libertarian leaning mindset and it's taken me over four years to make my way within the local GOP to be accepted as one of them and there's still a high level of distrust among us.

I wondered if you could address that. Is there a way that we can heal this? I mean, I don't like what's going on with these states that are just wiping clean all of these delegates and alternates that were selected in our convention process. To substitute these delegates with handpicked 'party' people, it's very frustrating for me and people like me. I wondered if you could talk about this divide we face right now.

[00:57:52] BB: It is frustrating, and I share your frustration because I like to see a party be more open and inclusive on these substantive issues. People like yourself who truly have sort of a Reagan-esque understanding of what libertarian with a small 'l' really is, and that it is at the heart of not only the fundamental foundations of this country but the Republican Party. It's what the Republican Party used to stand for and the Republican Party used to practice.

You're dealing with institutions, you're not just dealing with individuals. You're dealing with institutions and you're dealing with moneyed interests. It's very difficult to change that. It takes time, it takes a great deal of patience, it takes a willingness to work within the party from one election cycle to the next, to stick with it, to work kind of quietly sometimes within the party and for local candidates to become accepted, but without changing your views.

When I first joined the party back in the late 70s and into the 1980s when I was active, there were some very tough fights between the party as well between different factions. Those ultimately that are able to work their way into the party structure are those that are willing to compromise, not on principle, but to compromise on the tactics and how do you get into the party and who are willing to take defeats with victories and stick with it. It's very difficult to change the direction and the views of a political party, but I think it's absolutely essential.

I guess the one characteristic or the one element that is more important than any other is patience, and not to lose sight of your ultimate goal.

VSM: Yeah. Sometimes it's frustrating when we have these situations where people are talking about being practical or pragmatic and compromising on issues that, to me, are not issues we should be compromising on like the NDAA or the Patriot Act, civil liberties in general. I feel, on a lot of levels, people like me may have lost the battle to retain our label as Republicans. I wondered if maybe you saw it that way, too, when you decided to run as a Libertarian.

[01:00:43] BB: I did. It's a matter of, I think, recognizing that it's not so much the battle that you have to keep your eye set on but the war. It's not just one election cycle, it's a number of election cycles that matter. It's also how one goes about it. Some of the Ron Paul people go about it in a way that clearly rubs other people the wrong way. Whether one likes that or not, or agrees with that, it's a fact, and you have to have people that you put forward to argue these points that understand that. I mean, it's part of the political process, the maturity of the political process. It can't be a sort of 'in your face' kind of attitude which some of the Ron Paul supporters practice. It's not… that's not going to win the ultimate war.

Proof: Right. But at the same time, going back to the delegate counts, it's hard to win that war also if 23 out of 28 people in your state side with Ron Paul and they just kick everyone out. It really makes those 23 people as well as the others that tried to get on feel as though it's a set up.

[01:02:10] BB: In many respects it is. The system is gamed against people who have views that are different from the majority views in a particular party. But it's the same sort of problem that we faced four years ago and that Gary Johnson is facing now. You can't give up on it. You have to keep trying. You have to be willing to accept partial victories, maybe small steps, in order to work your way into a party structure.

Proof: Ok. Valerie, do you have anything else here? I'm going to let you finish up because we got to get ready for Steve Gelder here momentarily.

VSM: Sure. I was just going to ask Congressman Barr about any new projects he had upcoming, anything he wanted to tell us about that's in the works.

[01:03:04] BB: We do. I have an organization called Liberty Guard. We have taken on TSA recently. We have a lawsuit pending against TSA simply to get them to disclose information that we believe the law requires them to disclose. We filed a couple of years ago a Freedom of Information Act, FOIA, request. They have stonewalled on it so we had to sue them and we're moving forward with that.

We're also moving forward through Liberty Guard with a project to raise public awareness against the use of domestic drones, which is also very important. That's one particular project, Liberty Guard. People can go to the Liberty Guard website to get more information.

I think it's important not to allow these agencies like TSA, like Department of Homeland Security to run roughshod over the American people and over the Constitution.

Proof: Well, Bob, I've seen so many times in regards to TSA, I can't count how many times they've said they're going to stop rolling kids 12 and under through the nudie machines and they’re going to stop frisking them. Then you see people getting arrested a day or two later because they don't let their kids go through the nudie machines.

[01:04:36] BB: But there have been some positive steps. What we need to do is we need to keep the public's attention focused in a positive way on what TSA is doing. I think if we do that -- and we're not going to win by having people put up a big fuss and they go through and take their clothes off or get in arguments with TSA, you can't beat them that way, but you can beat them by consistently fighting these issues and developing more supporters in the Congress. There are --for example, John Mica, who heads the transportation committee -- there are a lot of friends that we have in the Congress, particularly in the House, that are willing to fight TSA on these issues. We need to support those members -- Chaffetz out in Utah as well -- we need to support those particular members, show that we support them and that in turn will in turn encourage more members to come on board.

Proof: Ok. Well, that sounds awesome. Anything else, Valerie?

VSM: I just wanted Congressman Barr to know we posted a link to LibertyGuard.org on the FreedomizerRadio.com website. Yeah.

[01:05:55] BB: We appreciate that, and I appreciate what y'all are doing and raising these issues and asking the tough questions. They need to be asked and they need to be asked over and over and over again.

Proof: Well, I definitely want to thank you, Mr. Barr, for taking time out of your night here. I'll let you know if it's not Ron Paul I'm definitely going Gary Johnson. I feel that he's, at this time, better than what everybody else has to offer. I'm willing to help support the Libertarian Party.

[01:06:28] BB: Gary Johnson is an outstanding man. He's a very credible candidate. His vice presidential nominee is a very credible candidate. I'm not going to argue against that. I've chosen for very practical reasons this time to try and get Obama out of there, but Gary Johnson is a fine individual and would make an outstanding president.

Proof: All right, well, thank you, Mr. Barr. Maybe we can have you back some other time. We appreciate your time tonight.

[01:06:58] BB: I'll look forward to it. Y'all take care.

Proof: All right. Thank you.